My life as a Missionary in the Santiago East, Chile Mission

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December 8, 2014 (Week 27)

Thursday was also my bump-day! In accordance with tradition, I burned a tie. One of Elder See´s ties. Actually, the second ugliest tie he owned.

A dog we found on divisions. His name is Leon. He literally has got to weigh about 150 pounds. He is massive.

I have some stories for you this week. It was fairly eventful, but obviously not nearly as what it was like during the 12 week program.

On Wednesday we went to Registro Civil to finish my carnet. This one was a doozy. We got up good and early and took Metro this time to Santa Lucia. Basically, the way you do all this legal-political stuff is getting in line and waiting, so that’s what we had to do, was get in line with everyone else and wait. The line stretched across the court out front, around the one side of the building and down the street behind it, which was when we showed up before it opened at 8. We had to photocopy some stuff from the pdi, so we had to go across the street to this guy who has the best placed business I’ve ever seen. Almost everyone who goes through there has to make copies of 3 papers, and he charges 500 pesos a page, or about a dollar, so you can imagine how much he makes with about 3000 people going through there per day.

The line didn’t take nearly as long as we thought it was going to, but when we got inside, it was basically just more waiting. We took a number, which was like 160, and they were on 12, so it took 2 1/2 hours to get through to a lady. Then we found our their system was down to foreigners, so it took another half hour to get back to the lady to get my picture taken and my fingers scanned. We do have to go back before the month is over to actually pick up my card, and I have to do it all over again in about a year. Woot.

While we were there, my comp made a Jordan worthy pun. Are you ready? I was asking if it was okay as missionaries to sit down on the ground to rest after so much standing, and my comp said, “You could, but people would look down on you.” Haha. Ha.

Thursday was persecute-the-missionaries day. We can into a drunk who told us that John Smith sailed to South America to eat everyone´s food, while another one yelled cuss words and another one was too drunk to stand so he squeezed our arms for balance, and not one of them would let us go to get to our appointment, making us late for our investigator, who we just barely missed. Then, a little later, we were talking with a guy named Juan outside of his house, and a man came over to turn on Juan´s electricity illegally, and when he saw us, sort of squared off and planted his feet and said, “Why haven´t you guys apologized to Iraq yet?” Then, he launched into a long anti-american speal, comparing us generally to Hitler. I mean, honestly, this guy belonged on internet commenting forums. I didn’t like being generalized with that, so I pointed out that I’m Canadian, and he just waved me off and said, “They are all the same.”

In Zone class, Elder Laurentino, of Brazil, said that last Christmas, he had dedicated every personal study to Christ. My comp and I really liked that, so we thought that we should try to do it as well. I’m basically reading Jesus the Christ and looking up every scripture, with the idea to try to really understand Christ’s mission and ministry, and be able to teach it to investigator. That will be how I try to feel the Saviour’s love for me, the same way one comes to any spiritual knowledge: by study, meditation, prayer and fasting.